A travel Web site operator with the unique
name costarica.com says in U.S. court
papers that it lost rights to the domain
to a hacker.

The operator, CostaRica.Com, Inc. S.A.,
had gone to U.S. District Court in
Virginia in an effort to reclaim the
domain name.

The court filing Friday said a hacker
stole the domain name and did so in a way
so that employees of the real owner would
not find out.

The Web company is represented in Costa
Rica by Alejando Solorzano-Picado,
according to the complaint. He said in the
complaint that the domain used to be held
by MelbourneIT.

That is an Australian domain
registrar. The hacker somehow
managed to gain access to the domain
management account.

"This hacker apparently changed the
mailing address to an address in Menlo
Park in California where he could receive
mail then subsequently put a privacy
service on the registration of thedisputed
domain to hide the fact the hacker had
converted it," the complaint said.

The current registrar of the domain in now
Name.com, which operates out of Denver,
Colorado. The complain said that the new
register was unhelpful and told

CostaRica.Com, Inc. that it
would need to seek judicial remedies. The
owner of the top-level domain is VeriSign,Inc. of
Alexandria, Virginia, hence the location
of the suit.

The person who now claims ownership of the
domain is listed as someone in Egypt, said
the company.

"Notably, the hacker did not redirect the
nameservers," said CostaRica.com, Inc. "As
a result, plaintiffs’ Web site stayed
active after the theft. Because
plaintiffs’ Web site was still active,
plaintiffs did not realize until mid-2016
that the disputed domain had been
fraudulently transferred and converted.
Plaintiffs surmise the hacker intended to
wait until the expiration of the statute
of limitations for conversion and other
applicable claims to change the
nameservers."

The person who is listed as the current
owner of the domain is someone in Egypt,
said the company.

The company has asked the court to return
the domain to it under provisions of the
Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection
Act.

CostaRica.Com, Inc. S.A. said it has
registered trademarks associated with the
domain and also has spent a lot of money
in promoting the trademarks and the site.
The firm also said that it has owned the
costarica.com domain since 1995.

Hurricane Otto left
a major health menace in the cantons its
hit. The Ministerio de Salud said efforts
are under way to eliminate standing water
and breeding spots of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes
to stop widespread cases of zika, dengue
and chikungunya. Staffers have been
added, in part, to eliminate stacks of
tires like these.

Ministerio de
Salud photo

Taxpayers get a break because of
hurricane
decree

By the A.M. Costa Rica
staff

Expats who pay Costa Rican taxes got an
early Christmas present Monday. The tax
authorities said that the first form
related to 2015-2016 taxes would not be
due until Monday.

The deadline had been Wednesday. The
Ministerio de Hacienda said that the
deadline had been extended because of the
national emergency imposed because of the
damage wrought by Hurricane Otto last
week.

Among other things, the central government
closed offices for two days, including
offices of the Dirección General de
Tributacion, the tax agency within
the ministry,

Many expats, particularly those in
business, have to file the D-151 form each
year, usually by Nov. 30. This is the form
that lists major amounts of income and
major expenditures. There are stiff fines
for failing to file on time. The tax
agency uses the forms to catch cheating.

The form has to be filed online.

The form is a warmup for Dec. 15 when the
final tax form is due along with any payment.

The contents of
this Web site are copyrighted by Consultantes Río Colorado S.A.
2016 and may not be reproduced anywhere without permission.
Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for more
details

A.M.
Costa Rica's professional directory is where
business people who wish to reach the
English-speaking community may invite
responses. If you are interested in being
represented here, please contact the
editor.

JAVIER ZAVALETA
RESIDENCY IN COSTA RICA
A full service immigration
agency
U.S. and San José offices

There are four
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legal residency in Costa Rica:Retiree
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For those with a pension or
other retirement income. Legal
Resident (Rentista):
For those with guaranteed
non-salary income or savings.
Business/Investor (Inversionista):
For those with Costa Rican
business or real estate
investments.Marriage/Relation
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married to or related to a
Costa Rican citizen.

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U.S. Income Tax
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Tax Accountant
Licensed by the I.R.S.

Marlene B. Summers

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In
front of Subway
at Plaza
Herradura, JacóGreen NAR
designee, member
of the CCBR,
CRGAR

9107-4/19/17

Representing
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del Pacifico,
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* 15 minutes to the
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* 10 minutes to
Medical Facilities
* 25 minutes to the
Liberia Hospital
* 5 minutes to Vista
Ridge Golf Club

This is one of three U.S.
helicopters that have been used
to supply hurricane-stricken
areas. The aircraft made trips
to Alto Telire de Talamanca and
to Chirripó with supplies
and medical personnel.

Comisión
Nacional de
Emergencias/Roberto
Carlos Sánchez

Animals, such as this dog
are getting emergency care, too.
The Servicio Nacional de Salud
Animal said it had set up three
mobile clinics, including this
one in Upala Centro. 150 pets
had been cared for and fed, and
in the next weeks thousands of
cows will be evaluated.

The
problems might not be over yet

By the A.M.
Costa Rica staff

Vulnerable communities are not safe yet.
Rains in the mountains are swelling rivers
which are rushing toward the lower
communities.

A resident of Puerto Viejo de Sarapiquí
reported Monday night that the adjacent
river could be as much as an incredible 40
feet above normal levels. Water from the
swollen Sarapiquí eventually empties into
the Río San Juan and Río Colorado and
jeopardizes such communities as Puerto
Lindo and Barra del Colorado in northern
Costa Rica.

Both those communities already are under
perhaps as much as two feet of water.

The national emergency commission could
not confirm the situation early today, but
estimates from residents say that the
giant slug of water will reach the
Caribbean in 24 hours.

Similar situations are believed to exist
in the rest of the northern zone and also
in the Caribbean and the south Pacific
coast. The area around Golfito still was
considered under the highest alert. Rains
continued Monday. The highest alert status
continued in Guatuso and Los Chiles,
asell as Upala in the north and also
in Osa and Corredores in the southwest of
the country.

The Instituto Meteorológico Nacional said
that a cold front over the country had
intensified the rain in these areas and
that from two to four inches had fallen in
the mountains above the rivers. The
agency was predicting as much as four more
inches in the mountains Monday night and
perhaps three inches in the south Pacific.

The agency said it hoped that the
influences of the cold front would
diminish today with a reduction in the
rain in the northern zone and the Central
Valley. But the central and south Pacific
were likely to get even more rain.

The ground is saturated all over the
country, so most of the rain becomes
runoff. There was concern about
landslides. Highway officials closed Ruta
32 north of San José for several hours
Monday morning to allow for inspections
for slides. The key highway was reopened
in the afternoon.

In the northern zone, the government
reported that 14 water systems still were
out of service of the 52 in that area. The
Hospital de Upala was getting water from a
tanker, as were some communities in the
disaster zone. There still were more than
3,200 persons in shelters. Some have no
homes to which to return. Two of the
shelters were in Limón province, one in
Matina and one in Limón Centro. The
Instituto Mixto de Ayuda Social said it
was evaluating three new locations for
those who would need shelter for a longer
period.

The Ministerio de Salud said that nearly
300 homes already had been sprayed in
Upala Centro to control the anticipated
increase in the mosquito population.

The Instituto Costarricense de
Electricidad said that 93 percent of the
damaged telcom services had been restored.

School resumed Monday in 3,896
education centers, but 305 in the disaster
zones remained closed. All schools had
closed for Thursday and Friday last week.

Candidate in Haiti wins a
majority

By the A.M.
Costa Rica wire services

Banana exporter Jovenel Moise won Haiti's
presidential election in the first round,
provisional results released by the
election council on Monday showed, after a
Nov. 20 election intended to end a year of
political uncertainty.

Moise won 55.67 percent of the vote, the
council said, a majority that means the
impoverished Caribbean nation will avoid a
runoff election and months more in a
political void, if the losing candidates
do not contest the result.

News
from the Spanish-language pressTranslated
into English

Costa Rica Report news feeds are disabled on archived pages.

Have you seen
these stories?From A.M. Costa
Rica(Text version is HERE!)

An article Monday in Rolling Stone magazine details the
account of a former University of Southern California
athlete who is suspected of heading an online sports
betting and drug distribution ring with a base here in
Costa Rica.

David Amsden, the writer of the article, weaves a story
of how a notorious high-stakes gambler named Robert J.
Cipriani, who goes by the pseudonym “Robin Hood 702,”
became involved with a man named Owen Hanson. the former
athlete.

The story details meetings in various locations
including Costa Rica and how Cipriani eventually helped
the FBI take down the operation that Hanson was running
abroad.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Southern District of
California, Hanson and the organization used threats and
violence against its gambling and drug customers to run
the operation.

Hanson,
33, went by the moniker of “O-Dog” and was one of 22
others named in a federal court indictment in late
January being charged with racketeering, operating an
illegal gambling business, conspiracy to distribute
drugs and money laundering.

Hanson is accused of running the Web site betodog.com
with an associate in Perú, according to the article in
Rolling Stone. That same article also mentions a
connection in business and real estate here in Costa
Rica.

The U.S. attorney also goes on to include that Hanson
was initially indicted and arrested on Sept. 9, 2015,
after arranging the delivery of five kilograms of
cocaine and five kilograms of methamphetamine. This
indictment adds additional charges relating to Hanson’s
organization.

If found guilty and convicted, Hanson and his associates
could face the maximum penalty of two consecutive life
sentences for the charges of racketeering conspiracy to
conduct enterprise affairs and conspiracy to distribute
narcotics.

Modest
price cut announced for gasoline and diesel fuel

By the A.M. Costa Rica staff

The nation's regulatory agency has approved a cut in the
price of gasoline.

The agency, the Autoridad Reguladora de los Servicios
Públicos, said it took the steps after the Sala IV
constitutional court concluded that the methodology that
was being used was permissible.

The
price of super will be 562 colons a liter. That
translates to $3.87 a U.S. gallon. Plus or regular
gasoline will be 535 a liter or $3.61 a gallon. Diesel
will be 427 a gallon or about $2.94 a gallon.

Super went down 19 colons, plus, 30, and diesel, 41.
That is from 3.5 to 7.5 U.S. cents per liter. The prices
go into effect the day they are published in the
official newspaper, probably later this week.

Taken from the bottom of the marine food chain, microalgae
may soon become a top-tier contender to combat global
warming, as well as energy and food insecurity according
to a study published in the journal Oceanography.

“We may have stumbled onto the next green revolution,”
said Charles H. Greene, professor of earth and atmospheric
sciences at Cornell University, and lead author of the new
paper. The study presents an overview of the concept of
large-scale industrial cultivation of marine microalgae.

Microalgae could reduce fossil fuel use by supplying
liquid hydrocarbon biofuels for the aviation and cargo
shipping industries. The biomass of microalgae remaining
after the lipids have been removed for biofuels can then
be made into nutritious animal feeds or perhaps consumed
by humans.

To make the biofuel, scientists harvest freshly grown
microalgae, remove most of the water, and then extract the
lipids for the fuel. The remaining defatted biomass is a
protein-rich and highly nutritious byproduct, one that can
be added to feeds for domesticated farm animals, like
chickens and pigs, or aquacultured animals, like salmon
and shrimp.

Growing enough algae to meet the current global liquid
fuel demand would require an area of about 800,000 square
miles, or slightly less than three times the size of
Texas. At the same time,

2.4
billion tons of protein co-product would be generated,
which is roughly 10 times the amount of soy protein
produced globally each year.

Marine microalgae do not compete with terrestrial
agriculture for arable land, nor does growing it require
freshwater. Many arid, subtropical regions, such as
Mexico, North Africa, the Middle East and Australia, would
provide suitable locations for producing vast amounts of
microalgae.

A commercial microalgae facility of about 2,500 acres
would cost about $400 million to $500 million. Greene
said: “That may seem like a lot of money, but integrated
solutions to the world’s greatest challenges will pay for
themselves many times over during the remainder of this
century. The costs of inaction are too steep to even
contemplate.”

Microalgae’s potential is striking. “I think of algae as
providing food security for the world,” said Greene. “It
will also provide our liquid fuels needs, not to mention
its benefits in terms of land use. We can grow algae for
food and fuels in only one-tenth to one one-hundredth the
amount of land we currently use to grow food and energy
crops.

“We can relieve the pressure to convert rainforests to
palm plantations in Indonesia and soy plantations in
Brazil,” Greene said. “We got into this looking to produce
fuels, and in the process, we found an integrated solution
to so many of society’s greatest challenges.”

Vacation, travel and
hospitality

Put
Costa Rica on your walls
The Hidden
Garden Art Gallery near the Liberia airport
is the perfect place to find quality Costa Rican
and international art for your home or
office. With over 60 artists and 15 rooms
full of paintings, prints, sculptures, and diverse
artistic expressions, we have been your source for
fine art since 2010. We also offer
commissioned pieces so you can create your own
unique masterpiece to cherish forever. Located
just 5 kms west of the Daniel Oduber International
Airport (towards the beaches).

The
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Costa Rica's world class medical specialists are at your
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contact: Hilda
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Police in the Midwestern U.S. city of Columbus, Ohio, say
at least nine people were injured on the campus of Ohio
State University when an attacker drove a vehicle into a
crowd of pedestrians and then began stabbing them.

The suspect was shot and killed by police. "We have to
consider that it is a terrorist attack," said Columbus
Police Chief Kim Jacobs.

Ohio State University identified the attacker as Abdul
Razak Ali Artan, a freshman at the school. Community
members in Columbus say that the man was of Somali descent
and was about 20 years old.

Hospital officials said eight of the victims had
non-life-threatening injuries, but that the other person
was in critical condition.

University President Michael Drake said there initially
were rumors of a second suspect. However, Drake said
police have searched the area and believe there was only
one attacker.

Drake said he would not speculate about a motive for the
attack. He said it was a deliberate attack because the
suspect drove his vehicle over a curb to hit pedestrians
on a sidewalk. He said the suspect then got out of the car
and began stabbing people with a butcher knife.

Campus Police Chief Craig Stone said a campus officer
arrived at the scene and shot and killed the suspect less
than a minute after the attack began. Officials say the
policeman, Alan Horujko, happened to be in the area of the
attack because of a previous call and saw the scene
unfold.

Students said they barricaded themselves inside classrooms
and offices, pilling chairs in front of doors, when the
incident was happening. There are nearly 60,000 students
at Ohio State's main campus in Columbus.

During Monday's news conference, Jacobs referenced a
previous terrorism case tied to Columbus, that of
Abdirahman Sheik Mohamud, who was arrested in 2015 after
returning from Syria. Mohamud, a naturalized U.S. citizen
originally from Somalia, was charged with providing
material support to terrorists.

Vote recount being sought
for verification, Dr. Stein says

By the A.M. Costa Rica wire
services

Officials in the northern state of Michigan have certified
Republican Donald Trump as the winner of that state's
presidential vote over Democrat Hillary Clinton by a slim
10,704 votes out of nearly 4 million ballots cast.

But Michigan and two other states where the election was
especially close, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, face
possible recounts.

Green Party candidate Jill Stein has filed petitions in
Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, and says she will do the same
in Michigan.

Dr. Stein says she is not trying to get the national
results overturned but wants to double check the integrity
of the election in states where the results were tight.

"After a presidential election tarnished by the use of
outdated and unreliable machines and accusations of
irregularities and hacks, people of all political
persuasions are asking if our election results are
reliable," she said.

Dr. Stein has raised millions of dollars to help pay for
the recounts. However, there has been no evidence of
widespread voter fraud or that voting machines were
hacked, despite allegations of Russian involvement in
manipulating the outcome.

If the results in all three states were to be overturned,
the 46 electoral votes Trump would lose would be given to
Mrs. Clinton, and would make her president-elect. But the
chances of that happening are very slim.

While Mrs. Clinton lost the Electoral College, she leads
in the popular vote by more than 2.2 million. This does
not set well with Trump, who clams millions of people
voted illegally.

He has not offered any evidence of fraud, and major media
outlets, including The New York Times, The Washington Post
and the Los Angeles Times, say Trump's claims are
baseless.

Trump threatens to reverse
Obama's warming to Cuba

By the A.M. Costa Rica wire
services

U.S. president-elect Donald Trump has threatened to
reverse President Barack Obama's warming of relations with
Cuba, the clearest indication yet that the historic
restoration of ties is under threat.

"If Cuba is unwilling to make a better deal for the Cuban
people, the Cuban-American people and the U.S. as a whole,
I will terminate deal," Trump said in a Twitter message
Monday.

The tweet is consistent with what Trump has said for
months about the U.S.-Cuba deal, which he views as
one-sided in favor of Havana. The matter has received
renewed attention following the death last week of
long-time Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

Trump's chief of staff on Sunday said the president-elect
is absolutely willing to reverse Obama's opening to Cuba.
Speaking on "Fox News Sunday," Reince Priebus said the
future of U.S.-Cuba relations depends on whether Havana
makes movement in the right direction on human rights.

"Repression, open markets, freedom of religion, political
prisoners. These things need to change in order to have
open and free relationships," said Priebus. "There's going
to have to be some movement from Cuba in order to have a
relationship with the United States."

Obama had been working with Raúl Castro and others in the
Cuban government for nearly two years to re-start
relations between Cuba and the U.S., culminating earlier
this year in the first direct flights between the two
countries in 50 years and the reopening of embassies.

When Trump was asked early during his presidential run
about the United States' warming of relations with Cuba,
his response was largely positive.

"I think it's fine," Trump told The Daily Caller in a
September 2015 interview. "We should have made a better
deal, the concept of opening with Cuba — 50 years is
enough," he said, referencing Washington's long-standing
economic and diplomatic sanctions against the socialist
country.

Fast forward a year, and president-elect Trump's public
stance on the issue has almost completely reversed. Now,
when Trump talks about President Barack Obama's efforts to
normalize relations with Cuba, it is almost entirely in
negative terms.

Though Trump did not reveal any details about his plans
for Cuba policy, he promised his administration will do
all it can to ensure the Cuban people can finally begin
their journey toward prosperity and liberty.

The statement stood in stark contrast to that of President
Obama, whose statement largely spoke of Castro in neutral
terms and once again reasserted that Washington extends a
hand of friendship to the Cuban people.

The relaxed regulations introduced by Obama made it easier
for Americans to bring products back from Cuba, allowed
more access for doctors to work with Cuban researchers on
medical investigations and ended the 180-day ban on ships
docking at U.S. ports after leaving Cuba.

Obama also visited Cuba earlier this year, marking the
first time a U.S. president had stepped foot in Cuba since
Calvin Coolidge did in 1928.

At the time of Obama’s announcement, national security
adviser Susan Rice was asked whether a new administration
would be able to alter the new rules, to which she said:
“It would be profoundly unwise and counterproductive to
turn back the clock.”

But during that September campaign stop, Trump said he
would roll back Obama’s executive orders unless Cuba met
his demands, which include “religious and political
freedom for the Cuban people and the freeing of political
prisoners.”

Although Trump's comments on Cuba may have been
inconsistent during the presidential campaign, the
businessman does have a long record of criticizing Castro.

U.S. fighter jet force faces
shortage of 725 fewer pilots

By the A.M. Costa Rica wire
services

When Iraqi troops began the operation to retake Mosul last
month, fighter pilots in America’s F-22 Raptor jets struck
the first Islamic State targets there. But that kind of
operation may be in jeopardy.

The U.S. Air Force says a shortage of fighter pilots has
become so dire that it is struggling to satisfy combat
requirements abroad.

“We have too few squadrons to meet the combatant
commanders’ needs,” Maj. Gen. Scott Vander Hamm, the
general in charge of fixing the fighter pilot crisis,
said.

The Air Force is currently authorized to have 3,500
fighter pilots, but it is 725 fighter pilots short. And
with fewer pilots, the number of fighter pilot squadrons
have also dropped, from 134 squadrons in 1986 to 55 in
2016.

As a greater percentage of the force has needed to be
deployed over the past 10 years, readiness, the ability to
accomplish missions at home and abroad, has dropped 20
percent.

“We’re having to look across the board and offer some
pretty unpalatable options as we get after it,”
Vander Hamm said, “And we may have to, within the next
calendar year, start to take some degradations in the
frontline squadrons. What that would mean to us is that we
would have to accept not being able to get forces to
theater in the same time.”

Each pilot needs years of training to maneuver high-tech
aircraft, which have evolved into flying supercomputers.

The number of fighter pilot squadrons have dropped from
134 in 1986 to 55 today. As a greater percentage of the
force has needed to be deployed over the past 10 years,
readiness has dropped 20 percent.

The Air Force is now training about 135 more pilots than
two years ago, but that effort appears to have been
undercut by the number of fighter pilots who have chosen
to leave the Air Force.

After about 10 years, pilots are offered a bonus payment
as incentive to stay on in the force. But in fiscal 2016,
only 40 percent took the bonus. Vander Hamm said the Air
Force needs to retain about two-thirds of its fighter
pilots up for contract renewal in order to fill the slots
needed in the force.

At Joint Base Langley-Eustis in Virginia, pilots who fly
the F-22 Raptor say that longer and more frequent
deployments have devastated morale.

“We were on 45-day rotations. Then they made it 90-day
rotations. Then they made it 120-day rotations. Now it’s
six-month rotations with one-year rotations sprinkled on
top of it for key positions,” said a lieutenant colonel
who asked only to be identified by his call sign Buz due
to his commander’s concern about potential retaliation
from enemy terror groups.

The deployments aren’t the only thing causing pilots to
quit. While stationed at home, pilots often have to work
extra hours to finish administrative tasks, in addition to
maintaining their flying skills.

“All of the same responsibilities fall on about half the
number of people who were there before, and that creates a
pretty high demand on these guys and their work life,”
Col. Pete Fesler, the commander of the 1st Fighter Wing at
Joint Base Langley-Eustis, said.

The fighter pilot shortage has spiked at a time when
commercial airlines, which offer more stable schedules at
home and the potential for higher pay, are looking for
more pilots.

“If it’s up to just me, I definitely would stay in, but my
family has a vote,” a major who asked to be identified by
his call sign “Jack” said. “If they want me to leave to do
something else, then that’s probably what I’ll end up
doing.”

Tom Hunt, a former fighter pilot who left the Air Force in
2013, says he decided to leave for several reasons. He
says he now earns more money as a Washington, D.C.,
lawyer.

The Air Force is asking Congress for money to raise the
bonus from $25,000 per year to $48,000 per year, the first
such bonus increase since 1999. They also have pledged to
decrease administrative duties for fighter pilots in the
squadrons.

Breakfast on the Mars flight
likely to not be very inspiring

By the A.M. Costa Rica wire
services

A journey to Mars presents many challenges, not the least
of which will be how to feed the astronauts during what is
expected to be a six-month journey to the Red Planet.

To that end, the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space
Administration is working to create lightweight food bars
that provide calories without adding a lot of extra weight
to the Orion spacecraft and the massive booster needed to
get to Mars.

Unlike the International Space Station, where astronauts
can choose from more than 200 food items, that’s simply
not feasible on a mission to Mars, primarily because the
amount of fuel needed to get to Mars means finding ways to
save weight in other areas, like food. Also, the space
station is regularly resupplied with various consumables.

The food bars, for now at least, are being developed for
breakfast, NASA said.

“When you have 700 to 900 calories of something, it’s
going to have some mass regardless of what shape it’s in,
so we’ve taken a look at how to get some mass savings by
reducing how we’re packaging and stowing what the crew
would eat for breakfast for early Orion flights with
crew,” said Jessica Vos, deputy health and medical
technical authority for Orion. “When you think about
multi-week missions in Orion, having just one package for
breakfast items for crew will help us limit the space we
need to store them.”

While many Americans eat a protein bar in place of a meal
from time to time, NASA said those are not good enough for
the Mars mission.

“There’s no commercially-available bar right now that
meets our needs, so we’ve had to go design something that
will work for the crew, while trying to achieve a
multi-year shelf-life,” said Takiyah Sirmons, a food
scientist with the Advanced Food Technology team at NASA’s
Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Some of the flavors being worked on include orange
cranberry and barbecue nut.

NASA notes that for other meals, astronauts on their way
to and from Mars will have food selection similar to the
space station.

One potential problem with food bars is that they may
lower crew morale, as food choice, taste and quality are
important on long missions.

So, NASA is also working on other ways to provide food to
astronauts, including a vegetable production system like
the one on the space station as well as other types of
packaged foods.

The first manned launch of the Orion is expected as early
as 2021, with manned missions to Mars coming sometime
later.

Shipping
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9004-4/26/17

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9098-12/1/16

Mountain
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9110-3/6/16

For
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penthouse for sale
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9017-12/1/16

Spectacular
Horse Ranch and Spiritual/Yoga Retreat Center For Sale

We invite you to a horseback tour of 187
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Officer Kristtel Zúñiga Vega of the Fuerza
Pública in the Canton of Goicoechea, San
José, has a giving personality.

When she had learned that in Barrio Moreno
Cañas in Upala that a 9-year old child
suffering from paralysis named Adrián
Moncada needed a wheelchair, Officer
Zúñiga went to the community and contacted
Ms. Moncada’s mother to provide the
wheelchair. The police made all the
necessary arrangements and gave permission
to Officer Zúñiga to travel to Upala and
deliver the chair, which was in perfect
condition but no longer needed due to a
death in her family.

Adrián’s mother, Francisca Castillo, was
pleased by the gesture of the Fuerza
Pública officer in putting a big smile
across her child’s face.

The event will be held through Sunday and is set to start at
10 a.m. at the Antigua Aduana. There will be a wide variety
of innovative and elaborate products there made by around
150 artisans and 30 designers, said the ministry. This
years’ event will focus on combining creative proposals of
crafts and design, the ministry said.

The Antigua Aduana is on Calle 23 in northwest San José not
far from the Estación al Atlántico.

French appetizer on the menu Saturday

By the A.M. Costa Rica staff

Alliance Française is hosting an event from 6 p.m. to 10
p.m. Saturday celebrating the end of the school year in the
style of a traditional French gathering known as I’apéro
or the appetizer.

The event is open to the public and will be at the Alliance
Française building along Avenida 7 in Barrio Amón. An
entrance fee of 8,000 colones allows attendees to receive
two samples of French wine, a portion of cheese with each
wine sample, and a traditional portion of bread. Karaoke and
bingo will also be happening as well.

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From Page 7:

Innovation is the theme for two
events

By the A.M. Costa Rica staff

The Ministerio de Ciencia, Tecnología y
Telecomunicaciones will present the 2016 Edition of
Click para Innovar and a session of Innovación
360 today and tonight in an effort to promote further
cooperation between influential persons in innovation
within Costa Rica.

Click para Innovar will be primarily made up of
academia groups and business sectors of agri-food and
biotechnology seeking to work together on new project.
It is supposed to develop activities that will become
a means to network and link researchers and
entrepreneurs together in order to create real impact
in the country, the ministry said.

The initiative is scheduled to be held at the Wyndham
Herradura Hotel, west of the capital, with the
expressed goal of boosting those sectors of the Costa
Rican economy. It is also as part of the ministry’s
Programma InnoLab, which promotes technologically
innovative projects from research centers and
establishes companies within the entrepreneurship
company.

“This event offers more than 68 researchers and 65
entrepreneurs of different backgrounds, the
opportunity to meet, give confidence, raise new ideas,
and schedule appointments to start working together in
the following weeks,” said David Bullón, director of
innovation at the ministry.

Innovación 360, the second event, will begin at 6:30
p.m. at the Colegio Los Angeles, Sabana Norte. The
Ministerio de Ciencia Tecnología y Telecomunicaciones
is also the organizer and encourages all to attend and
learn to explore projects driving innovation and how
to get involved.